


she's anything but a coward

by eomerking



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Break Up, F/M, Hurt, Spoilers, d'art is a major a-hole, s2e1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 01:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3099890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eomerking/pseuds/eomerking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Constance during d'Artagnan's attack on her courage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	she's anything but a coward

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry for the rushed quality, but that scene made me so mad and gave me the bug.

Anger. Constance feels it burning inside her chest, roiling in her gut. Perhaps she deserves this. She’s turned him down so many times, told him _to stay away._ But is it fair that he gets to move on when she’s stuck? She watches him lean to the woman to catch her for another kiss.

_What else did you think would happen Constance? Men don’t wait forever._

Then he saunters down the stairs from Treville’s cabinet, a smug smirk on his face. His hands go to his lips, where his fingers trace lightly like a young girl. Then he catches sight of her and the motion is more hurried. He swipes instead, as if ridding the taste of her off of his lips is enough to erase the memory from Constance’s mind.

_See how easily he forgets you._

“The queen sent me to inquire about General De Foix’s health.”

Her voice shakes and oh how she _hates_ it. To seem weak in front of the man who seemed only to love her for her strength. He saunters, looking anywhere but at her

“He’s weaker.”

_Turn and leave now, Constance._ If the queen wished for a detailed report she’d have sent a physician. _Go, run before he asks you to stay._

“Why did you do it?”

She stops and she knows that she’s trapped. The question is loaded with an accusation, and it’s all she can do to keep her chin up and try and stop her knees from buckling.

“Whhy did you chose Bonaceiux? You loved me, I know you did.” d’Artagnan’s voice holds the rawness that he only ever seemed to show her. The young Gascon lost in a city that was too big for him. His parents are dead and his farm was burned to the ground. He’s lost everything. _But you have everything to lose._

“You make it sound so easy.” She wants to snap at him, shout loud enough that the whole thing will be over. Instead he cuts back at her, quick as he ever is.

“Isn’t it?”

Her nostrils flare and her hands curl into fists, clutching at her skirt. She is glad that her shawl hides them. She steps towards him, her anger propelling her. The need to say this to him, to _explain_. Maybe then he could leave her to hate herself in private, to let her bury the pain so deep that she cannot remember it, instead of wrenching it to the surface every time he passes by.

She tells him of what would happen should they elope. Her husband, her family, her friends. She would lose all of them in one fell swoop. The security and comfort of her life would be ripped away. She would regarded as a musketeers whore. The position that he dangled in front of her, like an carrot before a donkey, would be taken from her. The queen wouldn’t want a disgraced woman at her side, no matter how much she despised the gossiping of the French court. D’Artagnan looks down to his feet, avoiding her. His face shows clearly that he thinks nothing of her fears – of her _certainty._ She would be a ruined woman but he seems not to care.

“Scandal soon passes, Constance.”

“For _men,_ perhaps.”

“We’d have married as soon as we could.”

“Bonaciuex might live for _years_ yet!” Why won’t he understand? It is not through lack of love that she stays away from him. _It is like arguing with a child._ Constance stalks even closer, even as the tears burn at the back of her eyes and her throat starts to feel thick. The indignant anger starts to rear its head, latching onto her. She wants to lash out at him, even as she tries to explain, to make him understand.

The thought of bastard children doesn’t seem to phase him, and still he keeps his eyes away from her. His hand raises to his head and runs through his hair.

_Why won’t he look at me?_

She has nothing to fall back on, the shame of her leaving her husband would take it all away in one clean motion. Yet he hadn’t considered any of that. He had thought only of himself and his own happiness. He certainly hadn’t considered what would become of her if he had died. Proud, vainglorious d’Artagnan would never fall in battle.

“I’d die on the streets, a beggar! Or prostitute!”

Just when he looks at her she digs in even deeper. He looks sick, and Constance is glad.

_If he understands…_

“You never even tried to understand what you were asking of me!” The urge to scream rips at her throat. Finally he turns and looks fully at her, rushing towards her as his own anger takes him over. He’s full of childish impetuousness, and each decision and action he makes brings that to surface.

“ _I know what you want!”_

The passion in his voice could be her undoing.

“It is not a boring life and a joyless marriage.”

Were they not the things that he helped her escape? The things that trapped her and confined her, kept her bound to a man she despised and living a life she had never wanted.

“You need love and adventure,”

 She had lived more in the past year than she has for the twenty-five others she had lived.

“And you know I can give you both.”

His eyes burn brightly when he looks at her, and Constance can see the love that he feels for her. But still he does not understand. _He talks of love, when not moments before he was entangled with another._

“I’m a woman, d’Artagnan. A woman in a world built for men.” He stares at her blankly, the fire not gone, but slowly being replaced by sorrow. This will be her final words on this, they have to be.

“If I lost you, I’d lose everything.”

_But you already have lost him. You never really had him._

“And I can’t take that chance.”

d’Artagnan looks at her now as if she has stabbed him. Perhaps in his mind she has, long ago, and now she is just twisting the blade and digging it in deeper. He retaliates in kind, and Constance realises now that he’s just a boy, and he can be as spiteful as any other. His final words drive a nail into her heart, and cement the fact that he will _never_ understand her position. Her inability to do anything that she wants. If God were to will it, she would take his hand and run wherever he pointed them. But God would never. And so she couldn’t.

“I’ve known you as many things, Constance. But never as a coward.”

It would have been kinder for him to hit her. To laugh and push her to the ground and declare her silly and stupid. Instead she looks at him for a moment longer, drinking in the details of his features. She can feel the tears making their presence known, and when she can bear it no longer she turns. She leaves then because she must, for herself and any dignity she may try and preserve. It is by God’s grace alone that she doesn’t fall to her knees at the entrance to the barracks, and by His will too that the first sob only escapes when she is far enough away that d’Artagnan won’t hear it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure that if they were anywhere else - in private - Constance would have decked him for that. I'm really surprised she didn't.


End file.
